Second Place

"Up A Road Slowly" by Irene Hunt is one of my favorite books.  It is the beautifully told story of a family's struggle to become a safe haven for one another in the face of death, abandonment, and adoption.  Or at least that's how the story speaks to me.  Julie, the main character, experiences the death of her mother when she is five-years-old.  Her father then chooses to veritably abandon her claiming he isn't up to the difficult task of raising a child.  To add insult to injury, he keeps her big sister.  Little Julie is then given to her maiden school teacher aunt.  

Why am I sharing all this?  One of my favorite ideals of adoptive families (and really all healthy families) springs from this book.  There is a section of dialogue in which teenage Julie is crying because she feels she loves her older sister more than the sister loves her.  An elderly gentleman says, "It happens the world over - we love ourselves more than we do the one we say we love.  We all want to be number one; we have to be number one or nothing!  We can't see that we could make ourselves loved and needed in the number two or three or four spot.  No sir, we've got to be number one and if we can't make it we'll rip and tear at the loved one until we've ruined every smidgin of love that was ever there."

I love that quote because in all families, but especially in adoptive families, there are just so many players.  So many important people who are called by so many names: first families, adoptive families, biological parents, unbiological parents, foster parents.  If every one of them is in a desperate race to be number one somebody is going to get trampled.  Chances are it could be the children.  I will not be my child's only mother and I do not have to be number one.  I can be number two or even three (if she turns out to be a real daddy's girl).  Kids are not property and I do not own my child's affections just because I am her mother.  In fact, I'll settle happily for a top ten ranking!  When I imagine the honor of being in my child's 'Top Ten Most Loved People On Earth'  list I think, "How could that not be blessing enough?"

 - Rosemary